2015- Still Dry, But Full of Ambition

This year is shaping to be another dry one, but that won't stop us from finding plenty to do.

While we will continue to limit our animal impact to help steward the land, this year we are launching an ambitious internship program with the TomKat Ranch Educational Foundation designed to both train aspiring farmers in production methods and business administration.

As the sustainable food movement continues to grow it is so crucial to ensure that the inspired and diligent young people moving into this field are given the tools they need to succeed over the long term. To that end Early Bird Ranch, TomKat Ranch Educational Foundation, and Kitchen table advisors are piloting the new Holistic Farm Enterprise Internship this summer. The internship will be an intensive 12 week program where interns will slowly take over the complete management of Early Bird Ranch's summer pastured broiler and forest-raised pig operations. The internship will be broken down into 50% training in pasture-based livestock production and 50% in business administration/planning, direct marketing, and small-business finance.

Along with TomKat Ranch Educational Foundation and Kitchen Table Advisors, we are excited that the curricula we create and refine over this and future summers will be shared in an open-source manner so that other farm internships will be able to easily incorporate these critical lessons into their programs.

For more information, please check out the "about us" section of the TomKat Ranch Educational Foundation website.